Thursday, June 22, 2006

Attention Young Republicans who had "other priorities" in their youth:

It's not too late to include military service on your political resume.

That's right: It's now official. The maximum age for initial enlistment is now 42 (confirmed). As long as you haven't reached your 43rd birthday, and are a healthy heterosexual male (females are also welcome), you're eligible to volunteer to Support President Bush win the Global War on Terrorism through military service.

More than 1,000 men and women age 35-39 have enlisted since the Army last raised the maximum age in January 2006.

OK, Ken, although you've been claiming you're 39 for quite a while now, you can admit the truth and still Be A Man! Enlist! Especially since you've publicly said you're not gay.

what you are saying is that someone is not a real man unless they have served in the military?

I've never served in the military, though most of my family have in multiple branches, and I can still grab my (admittedly - enormous) penis, look in the mirror, and smile.

Watch Starship Troopers again... Get that message clear... Unless you want there to be some violence required in order to vote... Liberal? No, fascists taunt people into violence as a pre-requisite for citizenship... Good job.

I am a veteran. It is nothing out of the ordinary for gay men. About 20% of gay men are veterans. Most of us are proud of our service, and most of us benefited from our time in the service.

Military service, or lack of military service, has nothing to do with being a "real man" or penis size.

Military service has nothing to do with politics, for that matter, despite the ugly attempts of the modern Republican Party to wrap itself in the flag and imply that the rest of us of suspect patriotism. I live in a rural area of Wisconsin, where a high percentage of men are veterans, and veterans in this area are as likely to be Democrats as Republicans, as likely to be liberal or moderate as to be conservative.

Military service is about service to our country, and nothing more and nothing less.

Recent studies suggest that just under 20% of gays and just under 10% of lesbians are veterans. Many gays and lesbian veterans served illegally at a time when gays and lesbians were considered unfit for military service and were banned from the military. Even today, under DADT, gay and lesbian military personnel are routinely removed from service, and the government refuses to recognize gay and lesbian veterans' groups.

Instead of attacking veterans with defensive nonsense about relative penis size -- comments entirely unprovoked by anything Anonymous said, as far as I can see -- why don't you join those of us who are gay and lesbian veterans and help to rid this country of DADT?

Thank you for your comment, your personal integrity and your service to our nation.

OYE supporters share a wide variety of political party affiliations, including yours. One of OYE's original purposes was to ensure that our governing party maintains its credibility on national defense.

'For what it's worth, I, for one, agree with Al Sharpton: If a community supports one party exclusively, that party will take that community for granted, because our political system rewards such behavior. Accordingly, I thank you for the courage of your convictions.

When "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was enacted in 1993, what is now the loyal opposition controlled both Houses of Congress as well as the White House. And you know what happened to them. [Karma, that is.]

Anonymous (7:01 p.m.), you can best help our national defense by encouraging our governing party, which includes yourself, to support repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," to ensure that our military has the best qualified real Americans fighting the Global War on Terrorism.

To add a little to this run of comments. My comrades and I down here in the sandbox have had numerous discussions on military service and citizenship. We have come to the conclusion that it is to easy to be and American. In our country you are an American from birth and it requires nothing more than just simply being born. You can spend your entire life simply chasing whatever it is you choose and never giving back to the community or actually making it a better place.

My comrades and I have come to the conclusion that no one should have full citizenship until they have served the country in some fashion. Not necessarily military service, but community service as well. It should be a useful skill that the government can call on in times of need. Possibly EMT, Fireman, Civil works, or anything else of a community nature. No one should be exempt from this since it can easily be molded around the many types of people that exist in our society.

At the same time I feel that there should be a limit to the amount of people who can volunteer for the community based projects and that those projects should be doled out to those with the ability to learn the jobs at hand. In other words if you don't have the intellect to be an EMT then that's not the job you will have. At the same times there should be a cap on those jobs and the idea of per say 100,000 people waiting to enter a job should never occur, if the positions available are filled then to bad. Guess it's off to one of the service branches to become a member of our nation's military.

With the relaxed age requirement, and with the number of Republican politicians spending time "away", I say it's time to initiate press-gang conscription of convicts. Thus we empty the prisons and replace the empty TO&E slots reserved for College Republicans with older Republicans. When they arrive at the Front, we can then send them rushing headlong at the Enemy with a wink and a nod and a sputtering grenade.

I'm Brick Tamland. People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks. Years later, a doctor will tell me that I have an I.Q. of 48 and am what some people call mentally retarded.